“What in the gods’ damned hells does that have to do with why you hate your cousin?!” Grom demanded.

  “Yeah,” Syril said. “That was all very… interesting , but how does that explain why you hate her?”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t usually have to explain that part. People mostly just want to know how I ended up being bargained to the fey,” Ellen said.

  “So, in the fey realm, Elsey was very much more popular. She learned their style of magic while I found tutelage under a wizard who’d made a bad deal with the fey. He’d asked for immortality, so they turned him into a slime—which are apparently immortal if not killed.

  “When we were teenagers, we escaped together, making a deal with the fey and coming out on top. When we returned home, everyone was far more impressed with the fey glamour trained wizard than the one who’d spent her adolescence learning magic from a viscous pile of goo.”

  “That doesn’t sound—“Bill began, but Grom kicked him under the table.

  “That bitch,” Grom said, lifting his ale in commiseration.

  “So, you said she’s your cousin,” Syril said. “But your father is her stepfather, and your stepfather is her father, and you parents are two sets of identical twins.”

  “Yeah,” Ellen said.

  “I don’t think you two could be any more like sisters if you actually had the same parents,” Syril said.

  “We were like sisters, in the fey realm,” Ellen said sullenly. “But when we returned, we grew apart as our talents took us in different directions.”

  “So why won’t you ever be queen?” Bill asked.

  “I explained that in the story,” Ellen said, exasperated. “Elsey and I both have younger brothers—though they were also both born at the same time—so they really keep kicking this whole ‘who is the true heir’ thing down the road.”

  “How are they going to settle that?” Grom asked.

  Ellen took another big drink of her wine, refilling it with a flick of her mug.

  “That’s not my problem,” she said. “Any more questions?”

  “Yeah,” Syril said, waving his hand over his own actually-glass-glass. “How did you do that with the wine?”

  “It’s not that impressive,” she admitted. “I just created a portal between my mug and the inside of a bottle. A little trick I learned from my master.”

  “The slime?” Grom asked.

  “The one and only. They only fed him the slop and leavings from their own meals, so he had to get creative—though he had acquired a taste for… less than pleasant things.”

  “Are the fey still looking for you?” Grom asked.

  Ellen blew her breath out slowly while avoiding eye contact.

  “So that’s a yes,” Grom said when she was slow to answer.

  “Not looking, but… they still technically own us,” Ellen admitted. “That’s one of the reasons I dove in with that new spellbook. If I learned one thing growing up with the fey, it was how to make a pact with otherworldly entities that didn’t result in you living eternity as an ooze. If I learned two this, it was that and sex. The fey have a lot of sex.”

  Grom and Syril’s eyes shot to Bill, who hid behind his mug.

  “Which self-respecting fey would sleep with the weird slime girl?” Grom asked.

  “Tell them,” Ellen said.

  “She was… fine,” Bill said.

  “You only say that because I refused to do that one thing!” Ellen shouted.

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  Bill’s face went wide with shocked terror.

  “Quiet!” he insisted, looking around the tavern frantically.

  “Oh, we have to know this,” Syril said.

  “Hey, guys!” Bill said loudly. “Did I tell you that I think I can hear when people are lying?”

  “What?” they all asked, surprised by the sudden shift.

  “Is this the set up to a joke?” Grom asked.

  “No, honest,” Bill said. “Tell me a lie.”

  “You’re a sexual deviant,” Grom said.

  “Truth!” Bill said excitedly and then realized what he’d just said. “No, no, no! I mean, I can tell when people are lying not magically detect if what they're saying is true. You think I’m a sexual deviant after what Ellen just said, but I’m not. “

  “Anyone else able to detect lies to confirm this?” Grom asked.

  “I never learned that spell,” Syril said.

  “Fey can’t lie, so I never needed it,” Ellen said. “When did this start happening?”

  “It started after I came back the last time, but I only realized what it was today when the Count was talking,” Bill said.

  “The Count was lying?” Syril asked. “About what?”

  Bill’s eyes went distant as he tried to recall the details.

  “He wasn’t sorry to keep us waiting, and there had been no Duke,” Bill said.

  “Eh,” Ellen said with a shrug. “Typical power move.”

  “He did really seem to have men looking into the disappearances, but he didn’t actually believe the vampire had been behind them.”

  “That’s… odd,” Syril said. “So, he’s either behind the disappearances and is sending the guard out as an attempt to hide the fact, or he’s not behind them, but also knew it wasn’t the vampire somehow.”

  “If he is also a vampire like we suspect,” Ellen said. “ And the disappearances are from this devil summoning group it would fit with the second.”

  “So, we are just going to accept that there’s a blood sucking monster running the city and ignore it?” Bill asked.

  “I hate to break it to you big guy, but most nobles are blood sucking monsters in one way or another,” Ellen said.

  “Yeah,” Syril agreed. “He seems to be running the city well enough. Better than most. If he is disappearing a few criminals or paying his servants for their blood…”

  Syril gave a shrug to complete the statement.

  “But that’s evil!” Bill insisted.

  “Is it though?” Grom asked.

  “Of course!” Bill insisted.

  “How?” Grom asked, making sure to not make any statements that might ring false.

  “Because… Because…” Bill began but then trailed off in thought.

  Eventually he decided on an answer he was comfortable with, “It just is.”

  “I can’t argue with reasoning like that,” Ellen said, throwing her hands up.

  Bill looked around in disappointment,

  “None of you want to kill him?” he asked.

  “Bill,” Syril said, in his ‘sit down, you’re going to be taught a valuable life lesson’ tone, “We want to stop innocent people from getting murdered. If the Count is behind it, then sure, we can go kill him. But if he’s not, its best we stay out of it.”

  “Fine,” Bill said. “I’ll prove it.”

  At that Bill stormed off out of the tavern.

  “What do you think we’ve been trying to do that last few weeks?” Grom yelled after him.

  “Bloody idiot,” Grom grumbled after Bill had exited. “What’s happening? I keep getting more magic from gods knows where, He keeps coming back to life, and now he can detect lies? Nothing makes sense?”

  “Ummm…” Ellen said. “I think I might have an idea.”

  ?

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